Temporary Bliss
by xxliveforever17xx
Summary: He was her dirty little secret, and she was his own personal drug, yet their temporary bliss was too great to stop. Sam/Andy, non-canon and OOC.


_Hi guys! So this story came to me suddenly and without warning, and who am I to refuse my muse? Warning though - this is non-canon and completely OOC for both Andy and Sam, and quite darker than anything their relationship has been like in the show. So no flames please, you've been warned!_

_Anyways, this story is dedicated to SunnyCitrus10 for the dreadful lapse in my promise to write the story requested almost two weeks ago and her amazing patience with me and my seemingly endless computer problems (thanks, Dell, for fixing my computer SO quickly *sarcasm*). Anyways, enough rambling. Please review, I love all of them and love all of your wonderful feedback! Hope you enjoy!_

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><p>It had taken Andrea McNally Callaghan less than a month to relapse into her old addiction.<p>

Three and a half weeks into her shiny, brand new marriage to a husband that loved her and had pledged his eternal devotion to her, and she had fallen back into the sinful addiction that, each time she committed it, threatened to tear her world apart.

But it didn't matter how many times she promised herself this was the last time, or how many times their nights together had ended in screams, she always went back to him.

Sam Swarek. He was her addiction, her sinful, dirty little secret that she couldn't - _didn't_ want to quit.

She had justified sleeping with him during her dating relationship with Luke, saying that she would stop once Luke asked her to marry him, and she had justified sleeping with him during her engagement, saying that she would stop once she was actually Mrs. Callaghan and her husband had a reason to come home each night.

And now, seven months into the sham of a marriage she was now trapped in, she was done making promises to herself she knew she wouldn't be able to keep.

It wasn't fair to Sam, she knew that. She knew that he loved her - he had told her he did, on more than one occasion. She heard the hesitation in his voice every time she called, and the pain in his eyes every time she showed up on his doorstep at two in the morning.

But he never said no, never refused her, because he knew she needed him, and deep down inside, she knew that he needed her too.

She loved Luke, she truly did.

No, she didn't. That was a lie. She cared for Luke - that was the extent of her feelings for him. Once upon a time, she had loved him, quite deeply even, but even now, looking back on that love, she knew it was only a temporary love, the kind that flamed out early in the relationship after burning so very, very brightly.

She went to Sam for validation that she was still important to someone. She went to him out of the need to know that someone, anyone, would always be there for her, not out at a crime scene at all hours of the night, or finishing up paperwork while she was home, bleeding on the floor of their bathroom as she miscarried her first baby.

When she was with Sam, she felt cherished and loved and special. Wanted. Needed. He made love to her so gently, yet so passionately, that afterwards, when she went home, she wept bitterly, knowing she would never have that with her husband.

But lately Sam hadn't been gentle with her. He had been rough. She had stopped calling him in advance, instead just showing up unannounced, because she knew he would never refuse her, never turn her away. But instead of pulling her into his house like he had always done before, barely giving her time to breath before covering her mouth in kisses, he had just stepped aside, allowing her to let herself in, closing the door with a slam behind him. The question was always the same - "Why are you still coming here?", and the look in his eyes was the same - haunted, and drawn, and in those few seconds before she answered she could see that Sam Swarek was a fraction of the man he used to be.

Because of her.

And then she would answer, "Because I still can," sometimes in a whisper, sometimes with a smile, and he _then _he would kiss her, but they weren't soft kisses. They were hard and demanding, his mouth unyielding against hers. Afterwards, as the bruises on her clavicle and his neck started to bloom as she allowed herself a few minutes in his arms, he would be gentle with her again, holding her against him so tenderly she almost starting weeping there instead of in her own house, his fingers tracing mindless patterns on her skin like he always did.

He would whisper in her ear silly compliments, like how beautiful she was and how much he loved her, and she would whisper back with how much she needed him. Because she did. She really, really did.

Invariably, he would fall asleep, his arms still wrapped around her, but she had perfected the untanglement of his arms from the countless nights she had spent with him so that she was able to slip out without him waking up.

She would see him at work the next morning, and he would have a cup of coffee for her in the way she took it, and they would ride together in the car for ten hours, taking calls and putting their lives on the line every day for the faceless population of Toronto. They would talk amiably and laugh easily together, but she always had the expression on his face when he made love to her in the back of her mind.

She didn't wear her wedding ring anymore. She had told Luke that it was because she didn't want anything to draw a perp's unwanted attention to her, and he had taken her word at face value, as did everyone else. But she knew that Sam knew the real reason.

She had broken her wedding vow, with him, and therefore was unfit to wear the ring that signified her fidelity to her husband.

And the horrible thing was, she didn't care that she was unfit.

But now, she didn't know how today's shift, starting in three hours, was going to go. That night, Sam had broken the cardinal rule, unspoken between them but understood by both.

He had asked her to leave Luke.

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><p>Sam Swarek had been tossing his Catholic elementary school education out the window for the past year, breaking the Seventh Commandment on a repeated basis.<p>

_Thou shalt not commit adultery._ Even though _he_ wasn't the one actually committing it, he was a willing participant in the crime.

He knew it was wrong, he had known his affair with his Andy McNally (for she would always be _his_ McNally, his refusal to acknowledge her new legal name most likely a factor in his continuous denial of his sin) was wrong since the very first time he had slept with her, the night of the blackout excluded. The first time had been after she had driven three hours back from Callaghan's fishing cabin and showed up on his doorstep at three in the morning.

He didn't remember if his moral compass had been skewed from the rather abundant amount of alcohol he had imbued he had had that night, or if it had been the sheer relief and desire he had felt at seeing her at his door.

Either way, that night had started a chain of events for them that he would forever regret.

He didn't regret his relationship with Andy, convoluted and screwed up as it may be, because he knew it was the closest thing he would ever have to happiness. She had ruined every other woman for him, not just sexually wise, but emotionally wise and every other thing-wise.

He loved her, and he knew she loved him too.

He hoped.

Every time she came over, he was blinded by her. He needed a taste of her, he was addicted to the very essence of her, and couldn't bring himself to stop the self-destructive path they were on.

He had promised himself he would put an end to their affair when Callaghan had announced their engagement in front of the entire precinct. Yet three days later, there she was, on his doorstep again, that desperate look in her eye that had him pulling her inside and kissing her senseless.

He had promised himself he would put an end to their affair - _permanently_ - when he had attended their wedding. She had looked so beautiful, so _innocent_ in that pure white dress that had him burning with a desire to rip it off her and remind her just why she _wasn't_ pure, and innocent, and virgin-like. He had spent the first half of the reception getting wasted at the open bar, and the other half of the reception twenty miles away, at Monica's, trying desperately to forget that damn woman.

Yet there she was, three weeks later, on his doorstep, with that same desperate look in her eye, and he couldn't refuse her, because he had been slowly wasting away for those three weeks without her touch, and without her smell on his pillow that he clung to on those rare nights she didn't come over.

He was an addict, and the withdrawals were a bitch, so when his own personal drug had come back, willingly and enticingly, he was helpless to refuse another hit of that pure ecstasy he had grown used to having each night.

He knew she came to him for validation and in search of being loved, and he voluntarily, _eagerly_ gave it to her, because she was so perfect, yet so broken and _not_ perfect that he couldn't resist making her feel beautiful.

He would give up everything - and he meant _everything_ - to be with her, and her _only_ with him. He would give up his job, his home, his truck, his friends - and at times that he was having shakes from the lack of his drug, his family - to have her all to himself, to have her be Mrs. Andrea McNally Swarek.

He wanted that so, so much. Because he loved her, and he knew that she loved him too.

He hoped.

But recently, he had become disillusioned with their relationship. He was, he freely recognized, a lovesick fool, incapable of moving on, stuck in a never-ending limbo, having to rely on her own whim and fancy for when she came over, for when she thought she needed to be with him.

And that pissed him off.

So lately, he hadn't been gentle and loving with her. It wasn't as if he was trying to be harsh with her, because he tried really, really hard to be sweet and gentle when she came to him, but he was so frustrated with her and with himself for being so weak.

And he hated being weak.

The bruises that he would watch slowly form from his too-aggressive bites and too strong fingers made him sick, and he tried to make it up to her by being extra gentle after their love making. He would never, ever lay a hand on her, and he knew that he had an equal amount of bruises on him from her hands and teeth as well, but he still reminded her continually - with her laying in his arms where she fit so perfectly - how beautiful she was, and how perfect she was, and how much he loved her.

She never said it back, but he knew she loved him too.

He hoped.

Andy's issue of never spending the night was something he was too anxious to pressure or talk about, the fear of losing her permanently too great. So he pretended to fall asleep, pretended he didn't notice her slowly untangling his arms around her and slipping out of his house, the faint scent of her the only thing left.

He was fine with their relationship. Every morning he would have her coffee ready, every morning he would enjoy their small talk and easy chatter, their straight-forward friendship seeming to weather the ever-growing complication of the other side to their relationship.

Every time he saw her with Callaghan, whether it be at the Penny or in the bullpen or in the detective's office, he felt hatred and contempt, but he also felt triumph, for though Callaghan wore his wedding ring, Andy never did.

Because of him.

And that made him happy, happier than it should. Apparently, it wasn't enough to be happy with that small token, because he had stupidly, _stupidly_ asked her to leave her husband and be with him instead.

He didn't know what had possessed him to ask such a question. He knew the unspoken rules of their affair, and the look on her face after his plea had been worse than if she had shot him in the chest right then and there.

He had begged her to stay, to talk to him, to work it out, but the damage had already been done, and just like that, she was gone.

Two hours after her departure, and he was still sitting in his bed, leaning against the headboard, the sheets bunched up around his face in a desperate, useless attempt to revive any scent of her, but she hadn't been there long enough to leave an imprint in the bed, let alone leave her perfume.

But there was one thing that he clutched to, hanging on to it for dear life.

She hadn't said no.


End file.
